EFL students’ Ability in Writing Argumentative Text: A Comparative Study

This study aims to examine EFL students’ ability in writing argumentative text. Qualitative methods were employed to answer the research problem. The population of this study consists of two universities students of the second semester English department students of Aceh State Islamic University and Private-own University. The sample of this study was 20 students, 10 from Aceh State Islamic University and 10 from Private-own University participated in this study. This study used test as instruments to asses students writing, and also questionnaires to find out the students’ difficulties in writing argumentative texts. Results show that the overall total mean of Aceh State Islamic University students 65.5 and Private-own University students 58.6. Questionnaires showed that most of the students agreed that they had difficulties writing argumentative text. This research showed that Aceh State Islamic University is high and Private-own University is medium. Regarding to students’ writing argumentative text ability, this suggested that students could improve their writing skill in the argumentative text interestingly.